After looking at the egg cooking thread in General Questions, I thought I’d bring this up in the SDMB food court, as it were.
Who out there has tried a classic 1,000 year old egg from the famous Chinese cuisine?
While in Taiwan, the hotel I stayed at had an impressive breakfast buffet. Placed among the sliced meats and fruits were the 1,000 year old eggs (hereinafter referred to as; 1KYOE). Yes, the whites were a delicate shade of tan. Yes, the yolks were nearly brown to black. From my cooking pursuits, I was well aware of what these were. I also remained put off by their appearance, even though I knew full well that there were no issues about edibility.
After a week or so at the hotel, I made myself try one. I knew this was the perfect opportunity to do so and I refused to pass up the opportunity.
They were delicious. Perfectly creamy, delicately flavored and completely wholesome to consume. Much like a perfectly hard boiled egg. Not the least hint of any rotten egg or off odor. A delightful taste and agreeable flavor were what I found. There was no issue of “acquired taste” or any such nonsense. Just a toothsome bit of good eats.
So, how many of you have tried a 1KYOE? You uninitiated ones do not know what you are missing.
I have had thousand-year-old eggs, at a Chinese restaurant I used to frequent. They were in a salad, with tofu and fresh herbs and probably some sort of spices. They were quite good; in appearance they looked like little dark gelatinous chunks, but taste-wise, they were nothing but pure eggy goodness.
Well, yours was better than the one I was offered. Cracking it open, I found the white to be purple, and the yolk (clearly visible in the center of the egg) was green. It reeked of sulpher so strongly that I couldn’t eat it, which caused my then-girlfriend (a Vietnamese immigrant) a great deal of anguish.
I always wonder how people come up with these things. I have never had one, so I’m not saying it wouldn’t be good, but what would lead someone to look at an egg and say to themselves I think I will bury this for awhile and then eat it.
Thanks for the link raisinbread I’ve always wondered where they came from.
Zenster! Now cut that out! I’ve been reading the SDMB for ten minutes and have read food comments from you three times. Send oriental salad or else![/hijack]
Yes, I confess, I’m a frickin’ food nazi! Now stop baiting me for the love of Pete.
Please forgive the pedantic style. It took some mental gyrations for me to understand this sort of food preservation method in my own time.
If you would be so kind, read the works of Pearl S. Buck. I believe that it was in her story, "The Three Daughters of Madam Liang" that one of the kitchen help routinely absconds with a small portion of the egg supply in order to create a cache of ready food. In the United States, where any of us might purchase one dozen eggs for the money earned by a few minutes worth of work, it seems ridiculous to prize them more than a little.
Imagine yourself living in a densely populated country where owning a hen is the equivalent of having a hog to slaughter. I’m sure this seems strange, but any sort of available protein was an incredible survival asset. A laying hen that provided eggs was a life support system. It sought out sustenance that humans could not harvest and delivered immensely consumable byproducts.
Allow me to digress momentarily (it’s the first time, I swear!). Please consider the historical origins of cheese. Dairy ranchers who experienced concentrated yields of milk during the productive times of year were compelled to preserve their harvest without any need for refrigeration. They invented cheese and reaped a vast increase in salable yield.
So it was for those who owned hens. Raw eggs demanded expensive refrigeration, immediate consumption or some method or preservation. Cooked eggs usually required further preservation and therefore represented a double whammy of sustenance cost. An exceptional method of utilizing eggs was found by making Mayonnaise. Blending uncooked eggs with ordinary food oil rendered a commodity nearly as rich as butter. In a time where milk cows required land ownership or grazing rights, simple Mayonnaise needed only a few laying hens and a purchase of oil. This discovery would have been a stunning achievement a few thousand years ago. Sadly, this recipe is only a couple of centuries old.
This is why 1KYOEs represent such a worthy achievement. Long before Mayonnaise, a method was found to preserve an easily harvested, low cost of production protein source. Once more, please consider the frequency of famines in China. Then try to adjust that against the incredible convenience of having an on-demand source of nutrition. Being able to store easily harvested protein sources for a long period without any sort of refrigeration or uncommon preservatives represented a significant survival tool.
Man, I love these things called “pidan” in Mandarin. Some are definately better than others. I’d have to pay attention next time I buy some, but the cheaper eggs actually have zinc or aluminum or some other crap in it. You need the grade A all natural thousand year old eggs. Many you can buy still in the mud.
Amy Tan’s 100 Secret Senses novel had the mission living off of thousand year old eggs for quite some time when they ran out of money.
Yeah, I’ve tried 'em. Subtle flavour. Good on their own or stirred into congee. I admit it was an effort to try one the first time, but they only look dangerous.
Gloria Miller has a recipe for them in her Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook and I have been sorely tempted to try it, not having run across the finished product in the Boston area yet (sadly, I don’t get to our small but interesting Chinatown much). It does require some fairly exotic materials, though.
Zenster, that was a great explanation of ancient food preservation practices. Smoking, drying, pickling, salting…all of these were invented to make perishable foods edible longer.
Hmm…yep, i’ve always known them as ‘century eggs’. Wouldn’t that make’em 100yrs old instead of a thousand?
Anyway, titles of food can be misleading. Just think French-oops-i-meant-Freedom Fries. Neither of which, btw, have any physical connection to the said food.
That said, i immediately thought of the ‘ren rou cha shao bao’ incident, where human flesh was cooked and stuffed into buns (by this deranged hawker), then sold to hungry diners(who ignored the name!).
Just for interest sake, the ‘pi’ in ‘pidan’ is the Chinese character for ‘skin’, whereas ‘dan’ is ‘egg’. Maybe it is due to it black skinned nature, or the brown-husk from which you have to crack the egg from.
I hated it. I just don’t like the taste of it as a young boy. The white are slimly and the yolk tastes powderly.
But I got used to them, especially if they come with congee…
